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Mecca and the birth of commercialbingo 1958–70: A case studyCarolyn Downs aa Centre for the Study of Gambling, University of Salford,Manchester, UKVersion of record first published: 21 Dec 2010.
To cite this article: Carolyn Downs (2010): Mecca and the birth of commercial bingo 1958–70: Acase study, Business History, 52:7, 1086-1106
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Mecca and the birth of commercial bingo 1958–70: A case study
Carolyn Downs*
Centre for the Study of Gambling, University of Salford, Manchester, UK
The game of bingo has become synonymous with women of a certain age andclass and has been stigmatised as a dead-end use of leisure. However, thedevelopment of commercial bingo in the wake of the Betting and Gaming Act(1961) offered the leisure industry access to a new and lucrative market. Whilemany major players in the leisure industry of the early 1960s adopted commercialbingo as an adjunct to their offerings the Mecca dancing group adopted a strategythat made bingo so particularly their own that the brand rapidly became knownas the bingo and dancing group with Eric Morley of Mecca referred to in thepopular press as ‘Mr Bingo’. This paper provides a case study of the Mecca groupas it moved into commercial gambling, rapidly increased its size and profitability,saw off competition in commercial gambling from larger companies and finallysuccumbed to a lucrative takeover in 1970.
Keywords: Mecca; corporate strategy; branding; leisure industry; gambling
Introduction
Whilst there is a widespread acknowledgement amongst those who write aboutgambling that the activity has an extraordinarily long history, there has been littleinvestigation of the significance of the similarly lengthy history of commerciallyorganised gambling. The commercialisation of gambling over the period 1800–1960was hampered by prohibitive legislation that made commercial gambling a lucrativefeature of the black economy.1 However the development of an early leisureindustry, exemplified by the nationwide spread of music hall chains from the middleof the nineteenth century, and mirrored by small-scale but lucrative commercialgambling, developed apace and can be seen to have accelerated in the period after1850 (Chinn, 1991; Clapson, 1991; Downs, 2009; Golby & Purdue, 1984; Kift, 1991).
It has been noted that there is a relationship between the demand for leisure timeand the growth of commercial leisure (Jackson & Weed, 2003; Owen, 1969, 1971;Tribe, 1999). However, commercial leisure in industrial society was not seen as aserious topic for academic study until Pimlott’s pioneering The Englishman’s Holiday(1947) which documented the changing relationship between the seaside, holidaysand social class in Britain. This juxtaposition of social history and commercial leisurewas further developed by John Walton with his seminal study The Blackpool
*Email: [email protected]
Business History
Vol. 52, No. 7, December 2010, 1086–1106
ISSN 0007-6791 print/ISSN 1743-7938 online
� 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/00076791.2010.523460
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landlady: A social history (1978), followed by his several major contributions to theplace of holiday and leisure in the lives of the working classes. A seriousconsideration of the history of gambling as leisure (always quasi-commercial evenwhen largely illegal) was first attempted by Ross McKibbin (1979, 1998) who clearlyarticulated the class-based nature of betting in the inter-war period, with RogerMunting (1988, 1996), Mark Clapson (1991) and Carl Chinn (1991) adding to thecanon with accounts that mainly concentrated on aspects of betting in a class-basedcontext, although Munting does provide a short overview of bingo as a numbersgame successfully commercialised. Bingo has not figured largely in social histories ofleisure, perhaps because it is seen as a minority pursuit. However, the BritishGambling Prevalence Survey (Gambling Commission, 2007) found 10% of womenwho gambled played bingo, and the numbers appear to have been much higher in theperiod 1950–75, with a large proportion of players from social classes C2, D and E(Dixey, 1996). Given the attraction of the game to significant numbers of women it isperhaps surprising that sociologists have been sparing in their attention. Theexceptions are Rachel Dixey and Margaret Talbot’s study Women, Leisure and Bingo(1982) and Faith Freestone’s short monograph on the future of the licensed bingoindustry post 1993 (after the National Lottery) and the impacts of bingo on the livesof players and staff in licensed bingo clubs. These important works do not provideany account of the rise of commercial bingo in the 1960s or the place of bingo as partof a diverse leisure industry in the UK though, nor of the particular place of Meccain the process of developing and codifying this element of the commercial gambling.
Commercial mass leisure is an interesting topic for the business historian, offeringthe opportunity to juxtapose the social history of the working classes with thedevelopment of business models based upon the discretionary spending power of themasses with their pennies and shillings. Recent scholarship on the music hall (Kift,1991), the pub (Clark, 1983), dance halls (Nott, 2002) the seaside (Walton, 1978,1983, 1992, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2007) have developed social histories that areinter alia business histories. This account of an enterprise that began as a sub-sectionof the Mecca entertainment brand but rapidly developed to become an activitysynonymous for the company is an attempt to develop further and make explicit therelationship between business history and the development of popular commercialleisure.
In inter-war Britain there was a huge growth in demand; both for leisure time andfor activities to fill that leisure time, met by an increased range of commerciallyprovided products and facilities. New or expanded forms of commercialised leisureincluded the cinema, football pools, dance halls, bowling, greyhound racing and theholiday camp, all of which were incredibly popular with the masses. During thisperiod existing forms of mass leisure such as the working class seaside holiday werefurther developed with the advent of holidays with pay allowing increasing numbersof the working classes to access a week away (Walton, 1994, p. 25) and makinginvestment in the business of pleasure for the masses an increasingly attractiveproposition (Walton, 1983, pp. 178–179). In the post-war boom years increasingdisposable incomes accelerated the development of commercial leisure at resorts andalso in urban areas. Although contemporary commentators largely disapproved ofthe increasing commercialisation of leisure (Labour Party Manifesto, 1959;Rowntree & Lavers, 1941) the masses voted with their money and increasinglybought into the idea of leisure as a commodity. This lead to a range of newopportunities for entrepreneurs of leisure and helped consolidate the position of
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brands such as Mecca, Butlins, Rank, Littlewoods and Forte that remain householdnames after seven decades in the leisure industry.
Commercial gambling
Gambling as a form of commercial leisure offers a leisure experience that has thepotential to provide a real thrill; giving punters the feeling that they are taking part inan activity that is out of the routine and potentially life-changing (Downs, 2008;Reith, 1999). At the same time it is also a commercial opportunity and one that Meccawas well-placed to exploit when the legislative restrictions surrounding commercialgambling were relaxed on 1 January 1961. However, the domination of commercialbingo by the Mecca brand was not a foregone conclusion. The leisure industrylandscape in the 1950s had many significant players. A number of these could haveprovided competition to Mecca; with Littlewoods or Butlins the leisure companiesmost likely to have been picked out as potential commercial gambling operators.
The attraction of gambling is such that even when gambling was largely illegal inthe UK participation rates were substantial (Kemsley & Ginsberg, 1951). In the de-cades since Kemsley and Ginsberg calculated a past year gambling rate of around 70%many new forms of leisure have developed. However, the most recent UK studyreturned a prevalence rate of 68% (Gambling Commission, 2007). This figure is nottoo dissimilar to that established in the work of Kemsley and Ginsberg; suggesting astrong cultural attachment to the pursuit. Given the popularity and profitability ofgambling, the commercialisation of the pursuit has not attracted much academicattention from business historians, perhaps reflecting Walton’s assertion that ‘businesshistory seems not to engage much with popular culture’ (Walton, 2010, p. 10).Commercial bingo, though, has from its very first appearance on the mass leisuremarket caused moral panic, seeming to epitomise the ‘dead-end use of leisure’(Downes, 1976, p. 46). The Times castigated bingo as ‘that cretinous pastime’ (TheTimes, 14 September 1961) and for many commentators the sight of queues of mainlywomen in town centres, waiting to gamble represented what Walton has eloquentlydescribed as:
Crowded, noisy, vulgar, unbuttoned, uninhibited enjoyment, for better or worse. Theyepitomised carnival, saturnalia, the temporary triumph of the periphery over the core,the world turned upside down, the suspension of dignity and inhibitions, the temporaryreversal of the civilising process, the reign of gluttony, extravagance and licentiousness.(Walton, 2004, p. 51)
The level of press condemnation of bingo may in fact be behind the decision of thecompanies with established gambling interests not to exploit the opportunity to moveinto commercial bingo. In the case of bingo, although a number of football poolscompanies had national brands from the mid-1920s, even in the 1960s they wereconcerned to highlight the respectability of the pursuit (Downs, 2009). Similarly,although some significant leisure providers had operated quasi-commercial bingofrom 1947, including Butlins, these companies also signally failed to exploit theirexperience in the area after the legalisation of commercial gambling, simply continuingtheir existing games for holidaymakers with the bonus that they could keep thesubstantial profits instead of donating them to charity. However, although casinos andbingo became an important element of the portfolio of interests of several nationalcommercial leisure providers (ABC Cinemas, Rank Group, Essoldo Cinemas) after
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the Betting and Gaming Act (1960), it is the speed and effectiveness of Mecca’s movefrom non-involvement in commercial gambling to leading provider of commercialgambling, ahead of experienced rivals and larger competitors, that is instructive inconsidering how businesses can exploit new opportunities effectively.
Mecca management impact
It is acknowledged that companies with effective management teams that actively seekto capitalise on openings in the market immediately after they appear are those mostlikely to expand; in 1961Mecca fitted this description (Child, 1974; Ramon Rodrıguez,2002; Tribe, 1999). The leisure industry is peculiar for experiencing both rapid growthand concentration of ownership; a pattern seen in music halls, cinemas and dance hallsbefore commercial bingo was developed and that continues to be apparent in thedevelopment of theme pubs and package holidays (Baum & Mudambi, 1994; Kift,1996; Lafferty & von Fossen, 2001). Despite concentration of ownership, leisure is afar less predictable industry than other industries. The novelty effect of a new activityboosts demand to unprecedented levels and companies that hope to succeed have to beaware of the trends and have the capacity to respond rapidly (Taylor, 1992). Leisure isa sector that suits market domination by large groups. The larger the group the greaterthe degree of diversity possible, and this in turn both offers the company a chance torespond rapidly to new leisure demands and protects the company from the inevitableand rapid declines in demand as tastes change. In many ways the leisure industry issimilar to other sectors; companies in the leisure industry want profitability andgrowth, positive cash flow and increasing dividends. In other ways though the leisureindustry operates in a significantly different type of marketplace; demand isextraordinarily variable across sectors of the leisure industry and also, as a serviceindustry, it is particularly vulnerable to decline during periods of economic recession.
It was not gambling but dancing that provided the foundations of the Meccagroup of companies. Mecca established a chain of dance halls with attached cateringinterests during the 1930s, and continued to expand provision even through the war,becoming the largest group involved in the provision of commercial dance venues.During this period Mecca diversified (maximising the benefits of vertical integration)buying companies that provided amongst a range of products and services, musicians,music publishing, dance floors and dance hall fittings, catering and catering supplies(Nott, 2002). In addition Mecca developed a range of different leisure venues includ-ing dance halls, ice rinks, ten-pin bowling and banqueting suites (Nott, 2002, p. 161).There was a concentration on ensuring that for every major element of the supplychain required for operating the venues Mecca owned that another part of the Meccafamily of companies could offer goods or services. There is nothing to indicate thatleft to their own devices, and with a successful and expanding chain of ballrooms, icerinks, music and catering interests, Mecca would have shifted into the slightly raffishworld of commercial gaming. The catalyst for the commercial exploitation of thepublic desire to gamble was the fortuitous combination of Mecca, Eric Morley (1918–2000) and the Betting and Gaming Act (1960).
Eric Morley
From the very start of commercial bingo in 1961 press reports refer to Eric Morleyand Mecca as leading the bingo boom, with Morley rapidly being given the title
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‘Mr Bingo’ by the popular papers. Morley had seen how popular the game couldbe when he served as an entertainments officer in the army during World War IIand had organised many housey-housey games (also known as tombola and lottoin the services). After being de-mobilised in 1946 Eric Morley took charge ofpublicity at Mecca; rapidly gaining a reputation as a man with commercial visionand a knack for predicting the next big thing. Morley got on well with the self-made joint-chairman of Mecca, Carl Heiman. Heimann had arrived in Britain inthe 1920s as an almost penniless immigrant from Denmark. He had tremendouschutzpah, wearing a smart coat and mingling with first class passengers as hedisembarked in London so as to avoid questioning by officials on his immigrationstatus and lack of funds with which to support himself. The Mecca brand thatHeimann successfully established and maintained through the difficult war yearswas pushed into the limelight in 1949. It was then that Morley instigated thepopular television show, Come Dancing, in partnership with the BBC. He insistedthat the amateur status of the competitors was paramount to the success of theprogramme. This ensured that the audience identified with the programme assomething any Saturday dancer might aspire to. Morley’s understanding of whatthe public wanted as entertainment was uncanny; in 1951 he launched the firstMiss World competition, which survives to this day and in 1961 he led Meccainto commercial bingo,
Mecca, Morley and bingo
As with his astuteness in spotting that Mecca dancing could be exploited on the BBC(episodes were broadcast from Mecca ballrooms and thus provided Mecca with freepublicity), Morley had also noticed the massive popularity of the ‘tombola clubs’ atButlins holiday camps (Gibbs, 1999). As a Mecca board member, when thecontentious Betting and Gaming bill was published in 1959 Eric Morley seems tohave spotted that government assertions that commercial gaming would not beprofitable under the provisions of the bill were incorrect. In moving Mecca intocommercial bingo Morley may have benefited from his close association with theChairman of Mecca, Carl Heimann, who had a longstanding friendship with BillyButlin, chair of the Butlins holiday camps:
When he went round the dance halls, I was always with him; no matter what he said, Iwas always free. The rows I had behind the scenes with girlfriends, breaking datesbecause of this, I would not like to repeat. I was always free for Carl Heimann and thusit was that in a five-year apprenticeship I learned more about the business than I wouldhave done in twenty years under normal conditions. (Gibbs, 1999)
Butlins campers played tombola (bingo) with the proceeds going to charity. Thiswas not a small-scale activity. Camps had to provide marquees capable of seatingup to 500 players at a time and would run two three-hour sessions daily (Gibbs,1999; Butlins Memories, http://www.butlinsmemories.com/entertainment.htm). Thecommercial potential of the tombola played by the patrons of holiday camps wasevident from the proceeds of the games, some £50,000 annually, that Butlinsdonated to charity.2 While there is no surviving evidence that Mecca was activelyseeking changes to the gaming laws in the period before the 1960 Betting andGaming Act, both Butlins and Warners holiday companies were engaged inlobbying of some MPs and the Home Office as they were keen to benefit from the
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proceeds of the game and wanted to be sure that bingo could be played in clubsthat were an adjunct to their holiday camps. Committee sessions and one vote weredelayed so that Billy Butlin could meet with the Secretary of State3 and hisconcerns were brought to the committee by the Under-Secretary of State who waspiloting the legislation through the Commons. It seems likely that the board ofMecca were aware of what was going on between the holiday camp companies andthe government4 and as Morley took charge of the bingo operations from the start,in a very hands-on way, his interest in this new venture seems to have been basedon a hunch that it would be a success.
During this period the far larger Rank Group was the main competitor andthreat to Mecca, and made aggressive attempts to take over the company. Rank wasfar slower than Mecca in exploiting bingo, even though the company’s leisureinterests were largely concentrated in cinemas and audiences were declining (Spraos,1962). Rank group had a more diverse portfolio, with engineering and reprographicsalongside cinema and film interests and perhaps this delayed and slowed the group’sadoption of bingo. However, it seems reasonable to consider the personal impact onLord Rank of the move by the company he chaired into commercial gambling, as itsits in some contrast to the flamboyant determination to entertain the massesdemonstrated by Eric Morley and supported by the board of Mecca. Lord Rank wasa leading lay Methodist and Treasurer of the Home Mission Department who haddescribed bingo as ‘a rather dreary game that does no real harm’ (The Times, 5 July1962, p. 6). This was not the view of senior Methodists who said that far from beinga matter of little significance it was a real concern to their members and, ‘we haveconveyed this concern to the Home Mission Department and to Lord Rank’. TheHome Mission Department of the Methodist church defended Lord Rankvigorously in a press release:
The department is fully convinced of Lord Rank’s integrity and that his opinion thatbingo is a harmless amusement is a sincere conviction. The department moreover agreesthat the guidance given on such questions is a matter for personal decision and shouldnot be regarded as in any way a condition of membership of the church . . . Mainlybecause of the eminence of the person concerned the particular question has caused realanxiety, but we should be prepared to defend the right of any individual to act accordingto his conscience. (The Times, 28 June 1962)
Dr Donald Soper led those Methodists who did not agree with the Home MissionBoard that individuals had a right to act according to their conscience, providingthey exhibited an ardent faith in God:
I am not being flippant. I hope we shall not involve ourselves in an attitude ofacceptance of the theology which lies behind what I believe to be the delinquency ofLord Rank. (The Times, 5 July 1962)
While the anxiety of the Methodists over an individual’s actions was not awidespread feature of the debate on the social ills caused or exacerbated by gaming,it is noticeable that despite adequate liquidity for expansion the Rank groupconcentrated on less contentious leisure areas and relegated bingo largely to sparecapacity in its cinemas, giving the impression that the ‘bingo and dance’ chainsoubriquet enjoyed by Mecca was not sought by Rank. Nevertheless, Mecca’s bingo-led profits were attractive to Rank, and led Rand to make two attempts in the 1960s
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to purchase the smaller group. Certainly there appeared to be a very real enmitybetween the board of Mecca and Rank, with the flamboyance of Carl Heimann andEric Morley standing in sharp contrast to the sobriety of Lord Rank. AnnualGeneral Meetings of Mecca were often enlivened by digs at the Rank group; ‘thecinema people. I never hear that they are doing all that well with their wonderfulcinemas’, with such comments applauded by attending shareholders (Economist, 27June 1964, p. 1510).
Strategic vision and the Mecca brand
That Mecca was preparing to expand shortly after the Betting and Gaming Bill waspresented in parliament can be surmised from the announcement in early 1960 of asubstantial rights issue. This would allow the company freedom to invest new capitalquickly without resorting to the banks and financial institutions that might restricttheir freedom and slow down their progress. The rights issue would increase theauthorised capital available to the company to £3 million, a substantial sum in 1960.Leisure firms often grow through takeover, vertical integration within a marketsector, or through diversification. While Mecca had followed these strategies sincethe 1920s the move into gaming moved the company’s diversification and takeoveronto a new scale.5
Some leisure industries offer superb cash-flow opportunities, bingo being a casein point. Players do not buy bingo cards on credit and the nature of gamblingencourages both return visits and re-staking of winnings; thus once bingo wasintroduced to the Mecca group it rapidly became central to the group’s ability toexpand by supporting both cash-flow and profitability. Thus in a diverse group cash-flow from cash-rich areas of the company can be used to support les cash-rich areasof the group. Mecca’s slow but steady growth in the period up to 1959 had beenmainly achieved through diversification into related catering, dance industry suppliesand music management businesses, with takeovers being of less significance in thegrowth of the group. After the passage of the Betting and Gaming Act (1960) and theconcomitant move by Mecca into bingo acquisition of venues and conversion tobingo became the main focus of the company’s strategy and the pace of growthincreased dramatically.
Whilst the acquisition of substantial amounts of new capital by Mecca indicatedthat expansion was planned, their move into bingo in January 1961 was at firstconfined to afternoon games in existing dance facilities, and not to wholesale conver-sion of properties into what were described by Mecca as bingo casinos. As propertyprices were relatively low during this period, and the purchase and conversion of asubstantial cinema into a bingo casino generally cost considerably less than £20,000,the additional £3m of capital would allow rapid and extensive expansion into this fieldof operation.6 The change in the law also encouraged existing mass-market leisureentrepreneurs such as Rank, ABC, Mecca and Essoldo into rapid development ofgaming activities; this in turn increased the respectability of gambling, andencouraged the rapid development of national gaming brands as pioneered byMecca.
Glamour and glitz
The key selling point of Mecca dancing was affordable glamour. Mecca halls wererenowned for having the best musicians, the best facilities and the most up-to-date
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tunes. Mecca dance halls were part of mass popular culture; places that attractedpeople by bringing the glitz of Hollywood to small towns like Harlesden. Thisstrategy had worked well for Mecca and the move to bingo was not seen as a movedownmarket. Until 1966 all Mecca bingo venues were styled, ‘Mecca Casinos’, whilethe group’s casino gaming was run by Mecca’s Craywood Club subsidiary. Meccaoffered a wide range of attractions to highlight the glamorous and casino-likeelements of spending time and money playing bingo. Callers and staff wore eveningdress or suits and venues were stylish and comfortable. Mecca regularly recruited thebest-known celebrities to call games of bingo. These included Diana Dors (who waspaid £300 cash per appearance), Cassius Clay, Tommy Steele, Lulu, Cilla Black,Frankie Howard and even Miss World.
Until the law changed in 1968 there were well-publicised glamorous additionalprizes such as diamond necklaces, mink stoles and cruises along the French Riviera.Until 1968 the regulation of commercial gaming was almost non-existent butproviders were not allowed to advertise and this restriction was strictly enforced.Mecca did not need to advertise. Local and even national press were keen to coverappearances by celebrities and access was guaranteed to reporters. Recent analysis ofpromotions within casinos has largely concluded that these are ineffective in terms ofshort-term profitability and in failing to improve consumer brand loyalty (Browne,2001). However, given the rapid increases in profitability after turning to bingo andthe number of members Mecca bingo had in the early 1960s it does appear thatMecca’s marketing techniques were satisfying ‘hedonic consumer needs’ (Lucas &Bowen, 2002, p. 191). They achieved this through providing opportunities both to benear celebrities and also offering the chance to access celebrity lifestyles through thetypes of special prizes they offered which contrasted with the more mundaneofferings available from other providers (Sunday roast dinner, kitchen equipmentand vacuum cleaners) and it may be this element of their branding that made thecompany so much more successful than competitors. Contemporary press reportssuggest that the Mecca name remained synonymous with quality entertainment evenas less salubrious operators of bingo were receiving adverse publicity for runningcrooked games in dangerous facilities and with poor-quality prizes (Downs, 2009,pp. 232–235). The Mecca name and reputation for honest dealing later gave thecompany an undoubted advantage in the fight to prevent commercial bingo beingbanned under the provisions of the 1968 Gaming Bill.
Strategy for maximising profitability
Despite starting bingo only in existing dance halls, as an adjunct to dancing Meccawas considered by commentators in the financial press to be the market leader in theprovision of commercial bingo, and the rise in profits over the first 26 weeks of 1961,probably as a result of seizing the opportunities offered by bingo, were a spectacular£179,000 (32% over the year) compared with a rise of only £62,000 for the sametrading period before the introduction of bingo (The Times, 29 August 1961, p. 18).This increase is striking since in 1959 Mecca’s profits only increased by 8% over theprevious year and in 1960 by 14%. The jump to a profit increase of 32% in 1961signifies expansion of business of a magnitude not seen in the previous two years andcontemporary commentators noted that similar rates of increase were not being seenin similar-sized competitor companies such as the Forte group (The Times, 29August 1961, p. 18). In the second half of 1961 the large-scale expansion into the
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conversion of buildings into bingo casinos was started by Mecca. Although Meccahad introduced bingo into most of its venues by June 1961 and was by that stageacquiring buildings for conversion into bingo casinos, the advertisement of companyresults, published in June 1961 did not trumpet this widespread introduction ofbingo, merely stating, ‘we have started bingo in our premises’ (Economist, 3 June1961, p. 1038). This laconic announcement somewhat belies the impact of theintroduction of bingo to the profitability of the company.
The leaders of the bingo boom have been the Rank Organisation and Mecca, but itseems to have influenced the results of Mecca more than those of Rank . . . Mecca’sprospects still beckon . . . The news at the Rank Organisation is less encouraging [thedirectors] forecast a fall in profits before tax from 6,451,000 to 6,000,000 in the year.(Economist, 19 May 1962, p. 717)
By the end of 1961 Mecca had opened four purpose-built Mecca Casinos, carryingthe trusted Mecca brand image into commercial gambling; although casino issomething of a misnomer, the main type of gaming carried out on the premises wasbingo, with slot machines a supplementary attraction (Economist, 30 June 1962,p. 1381).
The move to legal gaming, and the immediate adoption of bingo in particular, bysome mass leisure providers led to a product that was rapidly organised and codifiedin terms of a mass market, where companies spent money on market research and onintroducing new technologies in order to produce efficiencies. The economies of scalethat had radically altered the supply of food and the mass catering run in the Meccaballrooms were applied to gambling, and the emergence of the Mecca chain ofgambling venues, with rapidly growing market share over the period 1961 to 1968transformed an activity that had previously been extremely popular but of a localnature into a national pastime. Even contemporary commentators were surprised atthe speed with which large chains established control over the commercial bingoindustry.
An interesting feature of the industry is the concentration of ownership into a relativelyfew large groups, especially as this happened extremely early on in the development ofthe bingo industry. (The Times, 23 October 1961, p. 16)
The game increased rapidly in popularity so that Mecca was using 50,000 books ofbingo cards a week (five cards per book and sold at about two shillings per book) bythe middle of February 1961, a mere six weeks after the change in the law allowedcommercial bingo to be established. The popularity and spread of the game throughthe Mecca outlets can be illustrated by rising numbers of bingo books used, for byJune 1961 Mecca was selling 500,000 books per week and the average attendance atMecca bingo games was 150,000 players a day. The Economist (24 June 1961, p.1347) estimated that the gross profit to a promoter like Mecca might be £2m perannum. The slower start of the far larger leisure conglomerate, Rank, which hadintroduced bingo to only 14 of its venues over the same period that Mecca hadestablished 40 outlets was reflected in Rank’s call for investment capital more than12 months after Mecca had signalled a period of extremely rapid, capital intensive,growth (Economist, 15 April 1960, p. 832).
The immediate commercial success of the game is indicative of a widespreadpopular base that existed across the country before the changes in the law.
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The probable extent and popularity of housey-housey (tombola or lotto) before 1961makes the rapid move into commercial bingo by large leisure groups a logicalbusiness decision.7 Commercial bingo built on an existing player base. That baseappears to have been fairly evenly split between the genders (Cornish, 1978, pp. 112–115). However, apart from holiday camps different non-commercial venues appearto have attracted one gender over another. The CIU clubs (ex-services andworkingmen) were bastions of male bingo, often with a vulgar reparteeaccompanying the games. The Catholic social clubs and other charitable gameswere dominated by women players. The arrival of commercial bingo was at first anafternoon-filler for venues such as cinemas and dance halls with spare capacity.Women were more likely than men to have free time in the afternoon and this factorrapidly made commercial bingo a predominantly feminine pursuit.
The clubs formed by Mecca Limited and the Rank Organisation, each of which haspremises, management, catering and capital to spare, lead the field . . . The problem ofexpensive establishments left idle during the day is solved; Bingo has come to succourthem. (Economist, 24 June 1961, p. 1346)
As there was already a market for the game and the large leisure groups had a clientbase likely to be familiar with the game from National Service, holidays at Butlins orWarners, playing fund-raising games at Catholic social clubs or at workingmen’sclubs, bingo made sound business sense. Furthermore, bingo had the threecomponents that have been identified as essential to making any gaming productsuccessful in the market for commercial leisure. These are that it has to be simple toplay and easy to understand. There must be a significant jackpot, of which the publicis aware, and there must also be a realistic chance of winning one of a large numberof smaller prizes; bingo fitted the bill, in a way that traditional betting did not and itmay be this that is the reason why betting seems not to have increased afterlegalisation while commercial bingo found a ready market.8
Market domination
While dancing remained Mecca’s core business in the early 1960s Mecca wasconcerned with providing mass entertainment as profitably as possible, and thesignificance of bingo to such endeavour was rapidly apparent to both the board ofthe company and to financial analysts:
New types of entertainment in this country can bring a fast return to companies awareof the change in public tastes. Mecca, one of the first to introduce bingo into its dancehalls has reported an increase in group trading profits for the first 26 weeks of thecurrent year . . . Bingo is the unknown quantity in the groups profits . . . Without doubtthere is enormous potential in bingo today, not only for the organisers but also for theprinters. (The Times, 29 September 1961, p. 18)
That commercial bingo provision expanded swiftly is illustrated by governmentfigures showing that there were over 12,000 commercial bingo clubs within two yearsof the Betting and Gaming Act with 14,324,081 members and annual revenue of£11.7m. This figure is likely to be only part of a larger total as the government madeno attempt to calculate how many games of bingo were being played in pre-existingclubs and institutes, or as fund-raising activities.9
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As Mecca continued its expansion it was also increasingly competing with thesimilarly sized Forte group of companies. The Forte group offered both a threat andan opportunity to Mecca. The threat was of a hostile bid from Forte, while theopportunity was the chance to acquire a ready-made addition to the Mecca portfoliothat dovetailed with the group’s current interests and expansionary plans. The battlebetween Forte and Mecca, both major players in the leisure industry, offers a modelof the takeovers in the commercial leisure industry that ensured marketconcentration in the provision of commercial leisure. In 1961 the tantalisingprospect of a merger between the privately owned Forte group and Mecca set up asurge in the share prices but the deal came to nothing. Charles Forte wanted cash,not Mecca ‘A’ shares for his empire, and Mecca’s accountants found it difficult toagree a value for an unlisted company.10 While the bid for the Forte Group failed,Mecca had clearly signalled its intention to increase profits through growth, byacquiring companies whose holdings fitted in with Mecca’s portfolio of interests. Thepace of acquisitions over 1961 pushed up the value of fixed assets owned by Meccaby 51%, pointing to the speed with which the company was expanding. The growthof Mecca in the early 1960s was almost entirely due to the concentration onexpanding into bingo. However, this rapid growth and its allied increase in profitshad the potential to be rather a house of cards as it was built on increasing the size ofthe group very rapidly and was not necessarily the result of economies of scale beingachieved in any sustained way as would be expected from mergers and acquisitionsannounced in the latter part of the twentieth century.
The company was clearly using the popularity of bingo as a means ofunderpinning its dance and leisure interests. Bingo fitted well with the Meccamarket position, offering a glamorous brand of mass entertainment and Meccarapidly positioned itself as the dominant force amongst providers of commercialbingo, with Rank, Essoldo and ABC following. This top-down domination ofcommercial gambling by large conglomerates at such an early stage in a new industryis the opposite of the way businesses usually develop. The pattern of rapid expansioninto bingo by large organisations strongly suggests that there was a degree offorward planning by the existing leisure groups either before the law changed orimmediately after they realised the potential of the Betting and Gaming Act (1960).Mecca and the holiday camp providers, whose lobbying activities in 1959 and 1960indicate that they were clearly aware of the commercial potential of bingo, seem tohave spotted the opportunities offered by the change in the law before it occurredand were ready to move rapidly. Other leisure groups, including Rank, seem to haveseen the trend as it started and moved into bingo immediately but lesscomprehensively than Mecca, increasing their capitalisation as 1961 progressed toallow for more rapid expansion into this new area of business.
Profits
According to the Chairman’s annual report to shareholders Mecca’s businessimproved generally in 1963, but most of the improvement in profitability wasconcentrated in the dance hall and casino area of the group. The significance of thecontinuing rise in profits remained important to the market and assured investors ofthe underlying strength of the company. In an advertisement in the financial pressMecca revealed that it was to revalue its portfolio of assets. This statement was theprecursor to an announcement of a rights or debenture issue that would provide the
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company with additional capital. The market would have understood thesestatements as indicative of Mecca’s increased expansion aims and would havebeen looking for a big merger to be on the cards, either in the form of hostile bids forMecca or by Mecca. Rank was also expanding its interests rapidly but unlike Meccawas not concentrating on core competencies in the leisure sector. The sheer scale anddiversity of Rank in the early 1960s may be the reason that the company was slowerto exploit the potential of commercial bingo. The strength of Rank was a real threatto the smaller but aggressive Mecca Group. It was to be expected that Rank wouldattempt to acquire Mecca; both groups were growing and the Rank organisation wascash rich as well as the most powerful leisure group in the country. Rank bid £30million for Mecca, which easily saw off the attempted coup. The Mecca directors‘Refused to part with the information Rank were seeking . . . as they thought it wasnot in the company’s interests to do so’ (The Times, 9 June 1964, p. 16).
The Rank offer was generous and illustrates just how successful Mecca was. Itspace of expansion made Mecca a real threat to Rank in some areas, especially in themass-market entertainment business. By the early 1960s cinema attendances weredeclining rapidly (Spraos, 1962) and Rank’s leisure interests were heavilyconcentrated on its chain of cinemas. That Mecca was considered a prize by Rankis indicated by the offer of 25% above the market price for Mecca; valuing theordinary shares at 78s. as opposed to the stock market price of 54s. 6d (Economist,13 June 1964, p. 1276). Had the bid been accepted the board of Mecca would havebenefited to the tune of £4 million each, a substantial sum upon which to retire in1964. What other features Rank included in the bid are not known but are likely tohave been generous. There may have been sweeteners for the individual directors ofMecca, with senior positions in the Rank organisation available, but the downside ofaccepting the bid was that Mecca directors would not have the power over thedirection of the business that they had while Mecca remained an independent group.The chairman of Mecca, Carl Heimann, described the Rank bid as ‘impertinent’; he‘foresaw the danger of recommending to our shareholders something that 90% werenot likely to accept’ (Economist, 27 June 1964, p. 1510). There was much applause athis comments, especially at his jibes at Rank, ‘the cinema people. I never hear thatthey are doing all that well with their wonderful cinemas’ (Economist, 27 June 1964,p. 1510). That there might be other predators after Mecca was also of concern to theboard; Chairman Carl Heimann insisted that:
If this jewel is to be sold it must be paid for in money. Not in paper money that canchange value in the Stock Exchange in a matter of hours. If I am to gamble in shares Iprefer to gamble in Mecca shares. (The Times, 23 June 1964, p. 18)
This is an interesting attitude, as Mecca made all of its acquisitions through thetransfer of non-voting Mecca ‘A’ shares to the owners of the businesses theyacquired.
Vertical integration
While Mecca was expanding its empire through bingo, the game was also having aneffect on other industrial sectors. The printers who were producing books of bingotickets were booming, and were reporting the need to increase production as demandfor their products soared. The need to produce sufficient bingo cards to satisfy
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demand led to the creation of new jobs, mainly for women. Most of the bingo cardswere produced at 10 plants in the north-west and the plants were not keeping up withdemand despite overtime being worked. The solution was to introduce a housewives’shift. At one Manchester plant there was a four-ton backlog which new workers, allpart-time female employees, would clear by assembling the sets and packing them fordespatch (The Times, 25 August 1961, p. 5). Demand for bingo books continued torise, to such an extent that a year later the President of the Board of Trade praisedthe efforts of bingo book printers in assisting the manufacturing sector. In response,Labour MP Mr Boyden, pointed out during Parliamentary questions to thePresident of the Board of Trade that, ‘A large body of opinion is disturbed by theGovernment encouraging gambling’ (The Times, 27 July 1962, p. 8). Mecca mayhave suffered from interruptions to its supply of bingo books due to increasingdemands made on printers, or it may simply have been following its establishedstrategy as in December 1964 it acquired a 51% stake in the largest printer of bingotickets in the United Kingdom, thus ensuring that it could always guarantee deliveryon time and at a good price whilst inconveniencing rival bingo operators. As well ascontrolling supplies of bingo tickets Mecca was investing in the development of‘sophisticated new bingo equipment’ (The Times, 16 June 1965, p. 18). The type ofequipment being developed and acquired allowed fast, mechanised games to beplayed during the intervals of standard games. Because of the rapid rate of play andas different rules applied to the distribution of prizes during such games, the profitsto the company were greater. Mecca was also interested in the development ofsystems that allowed the main games to be called faster, as the quicker the game themore games per session, the more exciting the product to the consumer. These weretypical Mecca solutions to the problems of expansion: seeking to control suppliersthrough acquisition and encouraging innovation so that the company remainedahead of competitors. Mecca had used just such tactics in establishing dominationover commercial dancing.11
Regulation and repression
It is clear that by 1965 bingo was both a popular pastime and an equally popularinvestment opportunity. However, there was no regulatory framework in place tocontrol bingo clubs, casinos or the myriad of smaller gaming clubs operating acrossBritain in the period 1961 to 1968. This regulatory shortfall allowed organised crimeto move into gaming, running protection rackets and using clubs as a means oflaundering money (Downs, 2009, pp. 124–125). Mecca itself was not immune tothreats from protection racketeers and Mecca employees were found to be runninglucrative scams in some establishments. The existence of criminal activity withinMecca was something that the company downplayed; insisting that there was noproblem at large, well managed clubs and that any new legislation should be directedat the smaller clubs.
By 1965 Mecca was producing better results than its competitors in the massleisure market, largely because its dominance of commercial bingo gave the group anadvantage over competitors.12 Mecca bingo clubs had 2.5 million members, and thegroup had a presence in most provincial towns. Certainly by 1965 Mecca needed tomake the most of any opportunities for profit from its gambling operations as theLabour government was prepared both to tax and to legislate against the gamingfree-for-all that had developed in the wake of the 1960 Betting and Gaming Act.
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Despite the legislative change in the offing Mecca continued to have ambitiousexpansion plans, and apart from detailing new bingo casinos, gaming clubs, skatingrinks and other leisure venues that the company planned to open in 1966 Meccaannounced a move into mail order, holiday travel and personal insurance markets.The optimism of Mecca in the face of changes to its operating environment was inlarge part due to the certainty of the board that society was changing and thatcommercially provided leisure would be required fill the free time of the mass of thepeople.
Surely more and more people will enjoy greater prosperity together with shorterworking hours, and this will give us even greater opportunities to cater for their leisuretime, as well as, in many of our branches, during their working hours. (Economist, 9 July1966, p. 188)
The attraction of commercial gaming as a leisure opportunity to large sections of thepopulation was perhaps that the majority felt that they were not threatened with theloss of jobs and security, and they were therefore now at liberty to challenge oldboundaries and adopt a new way of living and leisure. As far as Mecca wasconcerned, offering gambling amongst its leisure activities was extremely profitable;by 1966 bingo was contributing 28% (£827,639) of the profits of the group(Economist, 9 July 1966, p. 188).
Declining profits
By 1967 it was becoming clear that tax changes were leading to results that weresignificantly worse for the group; there was an actual loss; group profits fell by£15,000. The significance of the figure is not the relatively small amount of the loss,but the impact such a loss had on the image of the company as a vehicle for growth.However, the figures reflect a full year’s impact of Selective Employment Tax andBingo Gaming Licence Duty, which in the case of Mecca amounted to £400,000.Despite the necessarily upbeat nature of the Chairman’s review the dividend wasreduced to 18%, plus scrip shares, a move not appreciated by the financial press.
The carrot from Mecca of a one-for-twenty scrip issue was not enough to stop the ‘A’shares sliding 1s. to 15s. 7½d. after yesterday’s results . . . Trading profits, in fact,inched ahead, even after absorbing some £400,000 SET and bingo and gaming licenceduties.13 With Mecca’s formidable gearing, any sizable profit upturn shows throughsharply in earnings, but the other side of the coin is the heavy interest burden.[14] . . . Atpresent the 5.8% yield is some consolation but with a P/E ration of around 15½ theshares are hardly alluring. (The Times, 11 May 1968, p. 12)
The losses were made despite the fact acknowledged by the press that, ‘Bingo is still,of course, profitable. Mecca, which gets nearly thirty per cent of its profits frombingo, appears to make over £10,000 profit per hall’ (Economist, 1 July 1967).
The loss of investment allowance relief and higher interest and depreciationcharges reduced the amount available for shareholders, as Mecca had not passed onmost of the company’s increased costs to the punters (Economist, 6 July 1968). Thegroup made the best of a difficult trading situation, and properties were revalued atthe end of 1967, giving the group an unearned £1.5m bonus, while it reported a firstquarter increase in profits for 1968, which despite the pending Gaming Bill seemed
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set to be a good year. In the ability to revalue properties Mecca was helped by itslongstanding strategy of vertical integration and the more recent decision to expandrapidly into the development of bingo casinos as the company had acquired anextensive portfolio in a wide range of locations. Mecca’s property holdings includedprime high street sites and industrial buildings and its manufacturing and supplyoutlets were less affected than its leisure and service operations by the tax changes.Mecca remained upbeat because it would have been aware by the summer of 1968when it reported the 1967 results to shareholders that the legislative changesappeared to be potentially less damaging than feared to the company’s long-termviability, whilst almost certainly making life far more difficult for independentoperators. The independent bingo operators were less likely to have the resourcesnecessary to cope with new taxes, the potential demands of the proposed GamingBoard of Great Britain or of additional safety regulations local councils wereincreasingly imposing on bingo clubs as part of planning conditions.
Commercial bingo under threat
Mecca had profited more than any other commercial bingo operator during thebingo boom of 1961 to 1964 and was praised by commentators for having survived aperiod of difficult trading conditions brought about through changes to employmenttax, the introduction of gambling tax and the ending of investment allowances andthe threat of the introduction of stringent controls on gaming as a result of its visionand diversity (The Times, 27 September 1968). By 1968 England was considered to bea gambling paradise, with more than 1000 casinos legally operating nationwide.However, later that same year, the Gaming Act (1968) was passed. It was designed torid the country of the majority of casinos, while heavily taxing the ones thatcontinued running. Mecca, along with all commercial gaming operators, entered anew era in 1968, facing legislation that was designed to severely limit its freedom toexploit the desire of the masses for a bit of a flutter.
Eric Morley was central in rebranding Mecca to ensure that it survived thelegislative changes. As soon as the Labour government announced its intention tolegislate to bring commercial gaming under control Mecca took rapid and effectiveaction. The Mecca-owned newspaper, Dance and Bingo News, carried listings of eachMecca venue; Mecca Casinos vanished to be replaced with Mecca Social and BingoClubs. The idea of bingo as a mainly social activity was heavily pushed by EricMorley, and as he had control of the bingo operators’ trade body his stance thatbingo was played as an adjunct to socialising rapidly became the accepted line of alloperators. In October 1967 the formal campaign began, reported as ‘Council of Waras bingo owners fear Government Restrictions’ (The Times, 11 October 1967).Although the meeting was organised by the National Association of Bingo Clubs,they had the astuteness to invite and involve non-affiliated clubs in their campaign.This allowed them to present a united front to the government. The main concernwas that Roy Jenkins (then Home Secretary) would bring forward legislation of anature that would severely restrict the clubs. The owners wanted to: ‘Impress on theGovernment that bingo clubs represent a social service . . . it is in the Nationalinterest that bingo is recognised as performing a social function’ (The Times, 11October 1967).
This reference includes the now common notion that bingo is an activity with aprimarily social function. The great majority of previous press reports refer to bingo
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as first and foremost a gambling activity, undertaken for the thrill of winning, andalthough Mecca had included the social function of its clubs in press releases beforethis date, it had always emphasised the name ‘Mecca Casino’ and highlighted theglamour of spending time in a Mecca venue. Before 1966 such sources as pressreleases to local papers were used by the bingo clubs as a means of publicising largewins and emphasising the thrills of the gamble. There was serious concern amongstbingo club proprietors about the new gaming laws; particularly as the proposalsoriginally circulated by the Home Office appeared to outlaw most types ofcommercial bingo. Owners of large halls were ‘preparing a joint defence of theirinterests’ and set about transforming public and parliamentary opinion of bingo(The Times, 11 October 1967). The aim of a unified defence of bingo interests wasundoubtedly protection of the annual turnover of commercial bingo, amounting to£335m per annum in 1967 (The Times, 11 October 1967). The bingo clubs cited thestrength of the opposition from the churches and Labour government to bingo as aprime reason for the need to unite in its defence: ‘There are a lot of lobbies who mayendeavour to make legislation highly restrictive’ (The Times, 11 October 1967). Thebingo clubs were particularly aware of the strength of the Churches Council onGambling, which they viewed as their principal adversary in the lobbying process.
Undoubtedly, a leading figure in the concerted response of the gambling industryto the proposals of Harold Wilson’s government to control commercial gamblingwas Eric Morley. He co-ordinated the unified approach of the bingo industry andtried hard to persuade the casino operators to work with the bingo industry. At firstthe gaming industry (bingo and casinos) stood together against the government. EricMorley was one-half of a partnership representing the gaming industry to thegovernment with specific responsibility for bingo. However, casino operators werenot keen to be associated with bingo:
Bingo players are the kind of people who have to get up early in the morning and get towork or get someone else off to work – and usually go straight home when the bingoends. (The Times, 21 May 1966)
The casino operators decided to fight for casino gambling without bingo, leaving EricMorley to represent both members of the National Association of Bingo Clubs andnon-aligned bingo operators whom the NABC allowed a voice on its board during thecrisis over the survival of commercial bingo. Morley’s publicity initiative, involving apunishing schedule of travel around the country promoting bingo to MPs, was almostcertainly responsible for the creation of an image of bingo as a ‘neighbourly gameplayed for modest stakes’ (Sir Stanley Raymond, chair of the Gaming Board of GreatBritain, The Times, 12 December 1969). Mecca had invested millions in establishingcommercial bingo and with an estimated annual profit of £10,000 per site at stakeMecca had no desire for the game to be regulated out of existence as a result ofconcerns about excessive gambling amongst women or links between bingo and orga-nised crime (Economist, 1 July 1967, p. 63). When the Gaming Bill was first published itwas drafted in such as way that commercial bingo could not have continued.
Morley co-ordinated a lobbying campaign of ministers, standing committeemembers and the press that emphasised the difference of bingo and the bingoindustry to other forms of gaming. His success resulted in government concessions tobingo that allowed commercial bingo to remain profitable although somewhat ema-sculated by the loss of the majority of the profitable and popular link games.
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The casinos were hard hit by the 1968 legislation, sometimes described as the mostdraconian gaming legislation in the world (Dickerson, 1984, p. 16). Only 121 casinossurvived from the more than 1000 running before the Gaming Act (1968) came intoforce and casino operators may have been left regretting their attitude towards bingoand its players in light of the more favourable treatment meted out to that game.
The main impact on bingo was the advent of an intrusive and powerful regulatorand that the large link games that had become a hugely popular feature of bingowere banned. The Gaming Board for Great Britain was created as a result of the1968 Act, its remit being the apparently benign one of keeping under review ‘Theextent and character of gaming’ (Moody, 1974, p. 6). However others see the checksand controls instituted by James Callaghan and the Home Office in 1968 as ‘TheBritish Gaming Board under the 1968 Act constitutes the most autocratic Britishinstitution since the Star Chamber’ (Skolnik, 1978, p. 340).
After the 1968 Gaming Act came into force Mecca bingo concentrated on re-branding itself as a social activity, far removed from gambling. Mecca’s position asmarket leader and reputation for honest dealing helped the Mecca brand of bingosurvive the attention of the newly-created regulatory body, the Gaming Board forGreat Britain (GBGB) with relative ease. The board of Mecca continued optimisticabout the opportunities available for the company despite the difficulties imposed bythe new legislation and accompanying regulator:
The first quarter’s trading results for 1969 fortify our belief that we can overcome thesetaxation difficulties this year and look forward to the future with confidence. Thekeynote is expansion, not only in our existing premises and additional establishments,but also, and in the main, by the acquisition of other businesses in our industry.(Economist, 21 June 1969, p. 76)
Mecca remained vulnerable to takeover though, and having benefited from theopportunities available during the virtually unregulated ‘Golden Age’ of commercialbingo, gave in gracefully when in 1970 Grand Met paid £33m for the company.
Conclusion
It has been noted that leisure companies that moved into commercial gaming wereaware of the moral difficulties of selling gambling:
A characteristic feature of the approach of these providers to gambling is the emphasison developing it as a social leisure experience. They aim to change its image from that ofa downmarket, somewhat disreputable activity, to that of a respectable and sociallyrewarding one. (Haywood et al., 1989, p. 137)
Mecca in fact did not adopt this strategy at first. The company insteadconcentrated on moving part of its existing customer base to bingo, selling Meccaglamour through gambling. In this Mecca was hugely successful, and became theleading commercial bingo operator as a result. However, by 1965 it was clear thatmaintaining this strategy would result in damage to the Mecca group and it was atthis stage Mecca adopted the idea that bingo was a social activity first with gamblingas a supplementary activity. The election of a Labour government in 1964 andrealisation that the Churches Council on Gambling was heavily influencing Labourpolicy on commercial gaming clearly influenced Mecca in changing the name of itsvenues from ‘Mecca Casinos’ to ‘Mecca Social and Bingo clubs’. Since then a large
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part of the development of commercial bingo has been tied to controlling the imageof the game in order to persuade the public, regulators and legislators that theproduct on offer is socially acceptable; the responsible face of gambling.
Mecca was in some ways very similar to other leisure companies of the era, butwhile competitors had similar core competencies Mecca had additional competitivecompetence that allowed it to become the leading provider of commercial bingo.Mecca was able to reduce operational costs and the effectiveness of its bureaucraticprocedures through vertical integration. Having obtained a source of capital prior tothe opportunity for expansion Mecca could rapidly increase market share whilecompetitors played catch-up. Mecca also benefited from a loyal customer base, goodemployee relations and innovative research and innovation strategy which alsoadded to its competitive edge.
The importance of Mecca to the development of a commercial bingo industry thatfilled a demand previously serviced by the piecemeal availability of ostensiblycharitable bingo games should not be under-estimated. Rankwas a far larger company,but followed where Mecca led. Eric Morley saw an opportunity and the board ofMecca were prepared to follow his hunch. Eric Morley’s claim that he broughtcommercial bingo to Britain in 1961 cannot be gainsaid (The Sun, 23 February 1974).Had commercial bingo not been developed so rapidly by the Mecca group, with itsdesire to bring affordable glamour to the masses, then the type of commercial bingothat was stifled byMeccamight have dominated themarket. That is, commercial bingooperated by single entrepreneurs or small chains, in venues that were lacking infacilities and devoid of glamour, with loose canvas seating and nicotine-stained wallsand described as ‘a captive market for gaming and bargain pushing’ (Report of theGBGB, 1969, p. 27). Walton (1978, 1983, 1992, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2007), writingon Blackpool, has shown that the working classes were not passive consumers ofleisure; theymade demands that resulted in pleasure palaces by the sea, for fairground-type customary leisure to travel to the seaside, and these demands were met byentrepreneurs of popular leisure. Themass leisure market was, in some part, created bythe masses; they exerted a degree of popular control over the type of leisure available.The commercialisation of bingo is an aspect of this development of mass, commercialleisure; driven by demand from below but, by the post-war era, increasingly managedby and profitable for, large, national organisations. A popular, customary pursuit, thatwas part of working class leisure life, was legalised by the Betting and Gaming Act(1960) leading to successful commercialisation of a product that is surviving andadapting into the twenty-first century, with the Mecca brand still a leading player.
Notes
1. Legislation to control and contain off-course betting, lotteries and sweepstakes waspassed in 1823, 1845, 1856 and 1906.
2. HC Deb. 1959–60, 623, no 109, col. 2253.3. PP Sessional Papers 1959–60, I–XV, 1075, col. 1149.4. Stg Co Deb 1959–60 Betting and Gaming Bill, I–XV, 1075, col. 1149.5. Vertical integration is the term used to describe the degree to which a company owns its
suppliers/buyers. This can have a significant impact on a business with regard to costsand differentiation as well as having strategic implications. Achieving as much verticalintegration as possible is an important management strategy for growing a company.
6. During the period of rapid expansion Mecca never paid more than £35,000 for aproperty, and always paid in equity not cash, and when the company altered itsaccounting procedures to allow it to write off conversion costs, the amount spent on
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conversions was generally less than £10,000 per site, although for some large properties itcould be as much as £50,000.
7. As the result of an enquiry made in 1960 it is known that tombola was played regularly inthe 3500 Working Men’s Clubs registered with the Clubs and Institutes Union (CIU) andthat of the 2,200,000 members of working men’s clubs 80% regularly played tombola.Tombola (housey-housey) was a popular fund-raiser in Conservative clubs. They hadabout 400,000 members and 50% of these were reported to regularly play tombola. Therewere also 1146 British Legion clubs in 1960, accounting for 250,000 members and all ofthese clubs ran regular tombola sessions (Payne and Others vs Bradley, The Times LawReports, 17 February 1961, p. 22, column d).
8. This definition was established by the Henley Centre for Forecasting and GAHPartnership Strategy in 1994.
9. CMND 2275 Report on Enquiry into Gaming Under Section 2 of the Finance Act 1963,p. 6.
10. ‘A’ shares are shares without the voting rights that come with ordinary shares. In 1961Mecca was estimated to be worth about £15 million.
11. By 1938 Mecca had control of 300 dance bands, as well as owning an agency that dealtwith all aspects of the dance hall business and commissioning and publicising new andsimpler dances that the masses would dance (Nott, 2002, p. 157).
12. Mecca ‘A’ shares were 21s. with a dividend yield of 6% and a P/E ratio of 18.5. The pre-tax return on capital was 12.8% and although most of the increased profits were due totakeovers and were not necessarily the result of growth with firm foundations (TheTimes, 16 June 1965, p. 18, column d).
13. Selective Employment Tax (SET) had increased by 50% in 1966.14. ‘Gearing is concerned with the relationship between the long term liabilities that a
business has and its capital employed. The idea is that this relationship ought to be inbalance, with the shareholders’ funds being significantly larger than the long-termliabilities’. http://www.bized.ac.uk/compfact/ratios/gearing2.htm
Notes on contributor
Carolyn Downs is lecturer in socially responsible gambling and principal investigator on thefirst qualitative study of gambling-related debt.
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